Was it a dream?

"Meh," I exclaimed slamming David Mitchell's Number 9 Dream down on the kitchen counter. "Meh meh meh!"
It had taken me months and months to get through it, not because the book was boring or because I was trying to take my time reading it, but simply because whenever I picked it up, I was distracted by something coming on TV or by someone wanting to have a chat or by the bus arriving at its destination. It had taken me months to get through it and it had spiraled to a closing point far too quickly leaving my head spinning with everything that had happened in the closing page and cursing David (yeah, we are totally on a first name basis) for leaving me hanging in suspension without any hope of relief. What the hell, David?

My journey towards Number 9 Dream started about a year and a half ago when I picked up another book that David had authored and flipped through it frantically, giggling like a little school girl at parts, tearing up at others and bugging my boyfriend by reading him little tidbits whether he wanted to hear them or not, as I am prone to do. After putting it down, I had a craving for more, and made my way to the local bookshop only to find that they didn't have any more or, as was the case in the few that did, were selling them for some ridiculous amount that I couldn't afford to pay on my student budget. When, after a few months in Korea, I finally made my way to the English bookstore in Seoul, David was the first author that I searched for in amongst the chaos that was What The Book at the time. I scoured the secondhand section fruitlessly and finally gave in to the new books that stood gleaming on their polished shelves. There I found a small treasury of David's works, in amongst them Number 9 Dream. I hmm'd and haa'd about whether to fork over the cash and eventually decided that, since I had the cash to fork over in any case, it would be worth my while to use it on something I had been spent an age searching for. And so I dutifully paid for the book and lugged it back to my apartment in Cheongju where it then spent another age sitting on my bookshelf, looking at me wistfully, begging me to open it up and just glance at the treasures hidden within. Sadly, I wasn't feeling myself and wasn't in the mood for reading at the time. I decided that any book by David needed more than just my half-hearted attention - it needed my all, and I was going to wait to read it until I was prepared to give it that.

About two months before my swift departure from Korea, I opened the book up, intending to turn the pages as I had before. But, as I explained a little earlier, life tended to get in the way, and so Eiji's fragmented story ended up being twisted and intricately wound with my own fragmented life and reading of it. Nevertheless, I swooned over the unheroic hero, describing him and his exploits in detail to anyone who dared to ask what it was that I was reading and thoroughly enjoying every moment that I could spend reading the book. I opened it at every opportunity that I got, mentally encouraging and supporting Eiji both on his quest to find his father and in his efforts to hook up with the woman with the perfect neck - I just about jumped for joy when he finally mustered up the courage to phone her, and came very close to tears when he almost ruined everything. I giggled at the way he wove his words, cringed at the horrifying accounts of his dubious dealings and wept as he fondly remembered his sister and as the blame he felt for her death swept over him like the ebb and flow of the tide.

I could have read the book forever, slipping away into Eiji's dreamlike reality whenever the occasion called for it, but no. David had to tear it all down, leaving me with no hope for the future and no return to Eiji's world. Oh well, I suppose I will just have to find another of David's books to lose myself in. What a shame.